Color Out of SpaceNever trust gifts that emerge from glowing meteorites...unless your names are Jonathan and Martha Kent. Color Out of Space is a sci-fi/horror/black comedy loosely adapted from "The Colour Out of Space" by H. P. Lovecraft, and is about the affluent Gardner family's ill-fated encounter with an alien force that takes over their farm and exposes them to all kinds of eldritch insanity. What appears as a mysterious light that drenches the house and property at night spreads like a cancer over all that lives in this rural patch of Arkham, Massachusetts, until nothing sane remains.
|
|
Color Out of Space is directed and co-written by Richard Stanley, and is a bugged-out weird example of sci-fi/horror, reminiscent of something by Don Coscarelli (like Phantasm) or Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead. It deliberately shirks tonal consistency in favor of unseating the audience and toying with expectations, itself a kind of madness akin to the cosmic insanity that blossoms all throughout the Gardner estate. The film is bookended with narration, revealed to come from a young hydrologist named Ward Phillips (Elliot Knight), who describes in hindsight his revelatory and horrific exposure to the nightmarish evils that make the fictional Arkham their home. He crosses paths with Lavinia Gardner (Madeleine Arthur) on the banks of a river, where she performs a pagan ritual in the hopes of expelling the cancer afflicting her mother, Theresa (Joely Richardson), who has since been recovering from a mastectomy. This first interaction portrays her as a rebellious, moody goth that might have watched The Craft one too many times. Like all angst-ridden teenage girls, she takes herself a little too seriously, but this altogether harmless depiction of youth in revolt sets a tone for Color Out of Space that will be deliberately smashed later. She rides back to the substantial farm on horseback, where Nathan (Nicolas Cage)--her father and the mellow (even nebbish) patriarch of the Gardner family--has nothing better to do than worry that Lavinia's mom will scold her for riding out without boots. Nathan is a simple man who prides himself on doing simple things: maintenance on the homestead, tending his tomato garden, plucking a fine wine from his cellar, and milking his alpacas. His eldest son, Benny (Brendan Meyer), sneaks off to get high on pot from their off-the-grid "squatter", Ezra (Tommy Chong), while his youngest son, Jack (Julian Hilliard), is a beaming boy with wonder in his eyes. Theresa works from home and does something with banking or the like; evidently, this New England clan is doing well enough to not really have to worry about money. But once the meteorite hits, their personalities get twisted up in a deranged melange. Nathan flies off the handle (in that way that only Nicolas Cage truly can) and Theresa zones out at truly inopportune times, like while she's cutting up carrots. Strange pink bugs with multiple tongues slurk their way out of the well, and the water takes on an iridescent quality--and no, that's not normal for well water, no matter the iron content. All of these elements are prime fodder for a sci-fi/horror flick, but Color Out of Space introduces them into the mix with deliberately off-putting pacing, leading to scenes designed to inflict a sensation of awkward humor born from the absurdity of it all on the audience. These unhinged scenes of mutations and shapeshifting tableaux even include one that is a clear nod to (and potential parody of) John Carpenter's The Thing.
The works of that revered progenitor of cosmic horror, H. P. Lovecraft, have inspired countless horror enthusiasts, and interpretations of his work have been varied. (This includes the excellent "Southern Reach Trilogy" by Jeff VanderMeer, later adapted into the film Annihilation by Alex Garland--itself inspired by "The Colour Out of Space".) Being set in contemporary times is perhaps the least divergent departure from the source material, because of the way that the film approaches the madness of the unknown. In a sense, Color Out of Space invites the audience to experience the same feelings of disorientation and confusion that the Gardners do after they are assaulted by space radiation. Much of Color Out of Space doesn't make "sense", but this appears to be intentional. It seems like quite a coincidence that a skillful hydrologist like Wade just happens to befriend Lavinia before the onset of their cosmic attack, even if his presence is justified because Arkham's Mayor Tooma (Q'orianka Kilcher) is planning on building a massive reservoir. There are threads of subplots that go unattended, like how Tooma and Nathan are intimated to have bad blood between them because he wouldn't sell her his property, or Nathan's own strained relationship with his late father. Nathan resists turning into his abusive father, but nevertheless becomes unhinged (and abusive) himself when the madness sets in. Some details seem arbitrary or given excess weight, like how the film spends a disproportionate amount of time on a discussion between Wade and Ezra about the water purity. Sure, it's important to the plot, but it's more unsettling for the audience, because we are accustomed to less emphasis on scenes like these and more for others. These details subtly pull the rug out from audiences too comfortable with genre films, and forces the audience to constantly seek some anchor to ground them in their experience. Scenes twist or blow up to such an extent that audience befuddlement ultimately gives way to laughter at the ridiculous of it, despite the gore and overwhelming weirdness. And since laughing at inappropriate times is a pretty strong symptom of going crazy, Color Out of Space achieves its intent by warping our own experience and perception of horror just as that eponymous color does to the Gardners.
Recommended for: Fans of a truly bizarre sci-fi/horror film that constantly courts black comedy with disturbing and off-putting moments pushed to extremes. Color Out of Space is unquestionably weird and its approach to horror is best suited for audiences that are willing to explore its individual brand of entertainment, and put aside preconceived expectations of a genre film.
The works of that revered progenitor of cosmic horror, H. P. Lovecraft, have inspired countless horror enthusiasts, and interpretations of his work have been varied. (This includes the excellent "Southern Reach Trilogy" by Jeff VanderMeer, later adapted into the film Annihilation by Alex Garland--itself inspired by "The Colour Out of Space".) Being set in contemporary times is perhaps the least divergent departure from the source material, because of the way that the film approaches the madness of the unknown. In a sense, Color Out of Space invites the audience to experience the same feelings of disorientation and confusion that the Gardners do after they are assaulted by space radiation. Much of Color Out of Space doesn't make "sense", but this appears to be intentional. It seems like quite a coincidence that a skillful hydrologist like Wade just happens to befriend Lavinia before the onset of their cosmic attack, even if his presence is justified because Arkham's Mayor Tooma (Q'orianka Kilcher) is planning on building a massive reservoir. There are threads of subplots that go unattended, like how Tooma and Nathan are intimated to have bad blood between them because he wouldn't sell her his property, or Nathan's own strained relationship with his late father. Nathan resists turning into his abusive father, but nevertheless becomes unhinged (and abusive) himself when the madness sets in. Some details seem arbitrary or given excess weight, like how the film spends a disproportionate amount of time on a discussion between Wade and Ezra about the water purity. Sure, it's important to the plot, but it's more unsettling for the audience, because we are accustomed to less emphasis on scenes like these and more for others. These details subtly pull the rug out from audiences too comfortable with genre films, and forces the audience to constantly seek some anchor to ground them in their experience. Scenes twist or blow up to such an extent that audience befuddlement ultimately gives way to laughter at the ridiculous of it, despite the gore and overwhelming weirdness. And since laughing at inappropriate times is a pretty strong symptom of going crazy, Color Out of Space achieves its intent by warping our own experience and perception of horror just as that eponymous color does to the Gardners.
Recommended for: Fans of a truly bizarre sci-fi/horror film that constantly courts black comedy with disturbing and off-putting moments pushed to extremes. Color Out of Space is unquestionably weird and its approach to horror is best suited for audiences that are willing to explore its individual brand of entertainment, and put aside preconceived expectations of a genre film.